Explainer videos are great - if you need to explain something.
Elsewhere on this forum, I posted the following story and you may read through it if you wish -
A good video has to explain those things that simple text and pictures fail to explain. Sometimes that can mean to create an 'emotional proximity' that high production values and slick cinematography can create. But sometimes it is to explain facts that otherwise do not get communicated. It is at its most effective when it overcomes a communications short-fall.
To explain what a good video is, what I mean by a communications short-fall and how it can be overcome, let me tell you a story -
There was a guy called Justin (who in younger years looked like Shaggy from Scooby-Do) and he wrote an amazing piece of audio software and over a period of twelve years, he got others to help him develop this software. Soon it was hailed as THE insider tip by amateurs and professionals alike. All sorts people, from Bjork to the BBC, from big Hollywood post production studios, to some bloke in his bedroom started using it. As it only costs $60 for an amateur license and $240 for a professional licence, it soon managed to gain traction in the market.
I won't tell you all the things you can do with this amazing piece of digital wizardry, but it stands alone in speed, ease of use, flexibility and function.
There were however two big problems.
1. Justin refuses to spend one dime on marketing. No fair stands, no magazine adverts, no corporate events, no physical packaging, no glossy manual - not even a press-pack and some pictures. Nothing. Justin is a hippy-dippy kewl guy who keeps lamas, plays guitar (not very well) and (after a spell working for AOL) hates corporate America. He is the archetypical college drop-out success story! The competition (CuBase, ProTools, Logic and others) spends millions on advertising, fair stands, events, give-aways, glossy brochures and all have huge marketing departments. Justin ignores all that!
2. His software works differently to all the others. It looks the same, but under the hood, it is fundamentally different. That means that all the tools and 'work-arounds' that the user has to learn to record and edit audio in other programmes are just not necessary. This confuses many users who have spent a decade or two, using old-fashioned software that requires things like media-pools, edit windows and other hurdles, are just not needed.
Around 2014, this funky little programme had as many users as the so-called professional standard 'ProTools' that requires special hardware to make it work and is very expensive. The batting order was CuBase (Yamaha) with 19% of the World user base, Logic (Apple) with 18%, ProTools (Avid) 13% and Justin's programme 'Reaper' also with 13%.
And there is stopped. Despite adding notation, video editing, pitch-constant squeeze and stretch, auto-tune and many other tools and some 500 effects, the somewhat unfamiliar way of doing some things prevented seasoned professionals from using and understanding the software properly.
This was also not just frustrating for Justin and his team, but also for the potential users. They wanted to use this amazing piece of new software, but the unfamiliar way of doing things flummoxed them! Rather the devil they know, than have to take precious time-out to learn a whole new set of skills. But without the kudos of high-profile TV and film projects being done in Reaper, that push to the top was not going to happen.
At the same time, there was a guy called Kenny, who made really good explanatory how-to videos for all kinds of software and for Reaper in particular which he sold on-line. These videos lacked any kind of sexy production values and Kenny's voice (somewhat high-pitched and with a New Jersey accent) was not the typical voice-over you might expect. But they were just perfect for the task of explaining new concepts and ways of doing things quickly and easily!
Reaper already had an excellent 500-page manual that you could down-load, but it was really a reference work and did not show some of the new and exciting possibilities that Reaper offered.
Well, to cut a long story short, Justin bought the rights to all of Kenny's how-to videos this year and put him on a retainer, to explain difficult concepts in the forum and to make those excellent videos available to everybody.
Those very matter-of-fact videos are very, very different to the slick, high-production-values of the competition, but they were exactly what was needed to overcome a key communications short-fall.
On-line registrations are now beginning to accelerate significantly!
That is an example of how-to videos can boost sales. But the body of work involved is truly huge and it cost Justin a six-figure sum to have Kenny put over 100 instruction videos on-line and every month, Kenny gets a decent wedge to produce about six a month. There are some 200 so far, each dealing with another aspect of that giant SW package.
As that software is upgraded and updated on an almost weekly basis, the constant need for instruction videos seems never-ending. This year alone, they have added video editing and a complete set of MIDI and notation software routines, each of which would be a separate programme from any other company.
BUT
Like any good material,
those videos target a very specific need.
Q: "How do I quantize an instrument, using stretch marks?"
A: "Look at this video!
http://www.cockos.com/reaper/videos.php#AqsIBFjcM_4 "
And that how-to video even breaks the golden rule of being short, sharp and to the point! It is ten minutes long, but at the end of that video, the user absolutely knows how to make notes sound as if they had been played in perfect time.
You can learn anything from a how-to video, plumbing, welding, brick laying, whatever. Even brain surgery is occasionally taught, using how-to videos.
But limiting yourself to a few goofy animations will just not work for 99% of all cases. Kenny's videos have to be just screen-captures. Plumbing and brain surgery have to be hi-res live action.
Also, you must tailor your lengths to the subject matter - you cannot explain how to lay slate tiles or how to fell trees safely in 90 seconds, but then you hardly need ten minutes to explain how to clear the filters on a dish washer.
Sometimes, animations do work, but not often! Explaining complex economic concepts to laymen is often best done using sophisticated animations -
but
most things are best explained, using live action.
But as
@fisicx points out,
you must be a marketer and NEVER a videographer or whatever we are supposed to call the beast. That is why film school graduates usually fail to make good corporate videos. The best person to explain a technical subject is an engineer, the best person to explain how to build a wall is a brikie and the best person to sell more widgets is someone who knows how to market widgets.
At the same time, any and all videos have to be of so-called 'broadcast' standard. By that, I do not mean that the quality has to pass the BBC or C4 tech-specs, but
the lighting, camera moves and presentation has to live up to the same standards as all the other material we get to see on TV.
Getting a good presenter is the hardest part! They have to be photogenic and they have to be able speak well and not have any annoying quirks or have funny voices.
That is the problem that on-line video makers face - in the evening, the target audience is watching some fabulously well-made movie like
War Horse, interspersed with advertisements that cost six or seven figures to make (e.g. those Lloyd's Bank ads - just brilliant!) and then they go on line and stumble upon Cecil B. de HiDef and his wobble-cam, poor lighting, lack of proper script and the presenter in the middle of the picture.
And even in those rare cases where the thing is more or less professionally put together (though most fall down on lighting and framing) the presenter does not 'come-over' well. In writing this lot, I looked at some agencies producing that sort of on-line stuff and charge real money for their services and Boy! are they mostly rubbish!
In cases like that, the video becomes what is known in German as 'Ein Armutszeugnis' (a certificate of poverty) and will only serve to lose sales.
Sadly, it is my experience, that is most of them!
